Semiconductor device manufacturing method, wafer treatment system, and recording medium

Abstract

A semiconductor device manufacturing method includes loading plural dry-etched wafers one by one in a container having a side door so as to be disposed substantially horizontally and in layers vertically therein; and blowing out a purge gas horizontally to those wafers loaded in the container for 30 sec or more after all the subject wafers are loaded in the container while the side door is open.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to a semiconductor device manufacturing method, a wafer treatment system, and a recording medium.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]Conventionally, when treating wafers in such a manufacturing apparatus as an etching one, it has been required to load a predetermined number of wafers in such a container as an FOUP (Front Opening Unified Pod) and transfer the container among manufacturing apparatuses. Each time such a container is loaded in a manufacturing apparatus, the door of the container is opened and wafers are unloaded from the container, then subjected to the treatment in the manufacturing apparatus one by one. When the treatment is finished, the wafers are reloaded into the container sequentially. And when all the subject wafers are loaded in the container, the door is closed and the container is transferred to the manufacturing apparatus in the next process. Those wafers l...

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Benefits of technology

[0015]According to the present invention, therefore, it is possible to reduce the foreign matters that might otherwise be generated due to the degas generated from dry-etched wafers just after the dry-etching carried out for them.

Problems solved by technology

Furthermore, conventional dry-etching processes have often been confronted with a problem that foreign matters are generated at the bottoms of recessed portions if such a recessed portion as a wiring groove, a via hole, or a contact hole is formed in an interlayer insulation film, for example, on a wafer with use of a stopper, which is an etching stop film that contains nitrogen.

As a result, for example, as described in the patent document 2, in case of the method that blows out a purge gas from above the object wafers, it becomes impossible to apply the purge gas onto the surfaces of all the object wafers uniformly.

And this makes it difficult to thin the degas generated from the wafers enough and difficult to suppress the generation of foreign matters at the bottoms of the via holes.

However, foreign matters are still generated on some wafers.

And in case of the method described in the patent document 4, the water content can be removed while the wafers are transferred, but the method does not take any consideration how to lower the degas concentration that occurs just after the generation of the degas.

This has also been a problem.

And in order to satisfy those requirements, the manufacturing cost rises and this has been another problem.

Consequently, the degas generated from the wafer loaded last into the container in the dry-etching process cannot be thinned enough, thereby generating foreign matters.

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